Reefer madness

By Capt. Fogg

I remember stories of police drug raids being carried out at incorrect addresses going back to the 1960s. It's nothing new. I recall that in one raid, a homeowner was shot and killed by police who came through the front door unannounced and unidentified and of course the police were exonerated because not only has one no civil rights where the fight against marijuana is concerned, the "authorities" have no more restraints on their behavior than any pirates of the Caribbean would impose upon themselves. It is you see, so dangerous that no doctor can prescribe it and nothing is more important than prosecuting people who might have had something to do with it.

That was of course a long time ago and before the Internet, and I can't link to the newspaper reports, but it doesn't matter because the Federal Government in its conviction that the medical establishment is totally ignorant of medical matters continues to ride roughshod over reason, fact, sanity and law in it's lust to eradicate it. Normally when police are caught planting evidence to make a criminal out of someone against whom they have no other evidence, someone goes to jail and it isn't the victim. Not so with marijuana, the Devil's Weed. Some of the older folks may remember when the government tried to bust Patty Hearst using a false flag delivery that was foiled when she refused to accept a package full of dope. The government remembers and it's still in their bag of tricks.

Last week, a SWAT team raided the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. According to The Baltimore Sun, police disguised as deliverymen had dropped off a package addressed to his wife, and Mayor Cheye Calvo's mother-in-law left the heavy package on the porch. Calvo later brought it inside but didn't open it. Of course, it was a trap and the package held 32 pounds of the Devil's Weed, which justified the armed military invasion of his home. Without showing a warrant, the cops shot his dogs, one while it was running away. He was dragged downstairs in his underwear and tied up and thrown on a floor covered with blood and ripped with bullet holes, as was his mother-in-law. Finding the box still sealed, they simply left, taking it with them. Law? What law, they're the police!

On Thursday last, a medical marijuana dispensary in California was raided (what do doctors know about medicine?) by DEA agents who smashed up the place, blasting open an ATM and taking the money, cutting open a safe, smashing down doors and strewing the property of some residents everywhere during a wild four hour spree. Also on Thursday, an appellate court in San Diego ruled that Federal law does not pre-empt California's medical cannabis law. They don't care - they're the DEA. Cannabis is just too brain-searingly deadly dangerous to worry about the niceties of constitutional law. (What do doctors know about drugs?)

Now for the scary part. Although the L.A. Times article originally contained a photo of a gunslinger in a Blackwater shirt removing boxes of "evidence," the picture was later taken down, but, thanks to the Internet, it's still in circulation, as are the questions: since when does the U.S. government use an army of mercenaries to conduct military action against U.S. citizens within U.S. borders? Who removed the picture, and why?

So take this advice. If you're home at night and a bunch of armed men in black ski masks burst through your door unannounced, just grovel on the floor and don't try to defend yourselves and for heaven's sake, don't complain -- a pot-free America is more important than your life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. It's more important than your freedom or the rule of law and most of all, it's important that the multi-bazillion-dollar anti-drug industry not be tampered with.

(Cross-posted from The Impolitic.)